


I feel like this

by Richie_Rich



Category: The Adventures of Puss in Boots (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, So is Puss, Vina is sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:07:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29611932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Richie_Rich/pseuds/Richie_Rich
Summary: Puss in Boots is not jealous. You hear me? Not. Jealous. Nuh-huh. Never.But he hates Guy Fox' guts and he'd really appreciated it if he hadn't been holding Dulcinea's hand.
Relationships: Dulcinea/Guy Fox, Puss in Boots/Dulcinea
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	I feel like this

“Guy Fox...” he scoffed. His growl followed by some uncensored words in Spanish.

The night was bright and beautiful. The stars and the moon glowed magically, but Puss in Boots paid them no attention. On the contrary, he was rather annoyed by them. Because how _dare_ they shine so happily and even _smile_ at him when he was in such state?

The townspeople gathered at the inn, having fun, drinking and admiring the new hero who had arrived this morning. Even at this distance, he could hear loud laughter and cheers. At first he was there with them too, but after some time of listening to his boasts, how everyone _praised_ him, how everyone _compared_ _them to each other_ , he felt he couldn't do it anymore.

He wasn't jealous. Not at all. Him? Puss in Boots? Jealous? Ha! It's absurd! What would he be jealous of? This guy... _Guy Fox_ wasn't even half as handsome as he was, he had an annoying guttural voice, and Puss was sure that if he had to fight him, he would have beaten him with one hand, swordless, blindfolded. His stories and adventures were stupid and unreal, but Puss was the only one in town who saw it, because only he had dealt with all kinds of monsters and expeditions in the past. The fox was inferior to him in dozens of different ways.

Therefore, Puss could by no means understand why the people of San Lorenzo admired him so much when they had _him_ right in front of their noses. And no, Puss didn't expect any praise for fighting the thieves or saving the town. It was his duty and he did not treat it as a favor that he bestowed on the inhabitants. But _why_ was Guy so awed when the people of San Lorenzo saw _him_ fight all kinds of monsters and protect them from danger almost _every day?_ Why? Because he didn't write a book? It was not _his_ fault that he did not have a writing talent...

And Dulcinea... What had she seen in him? And how could she be so naive as to decide after just a few hours of acquaintance to set off on a journey into the unknown with a man she did not know at all! Puss told himself once again that he was _not_ jealous, but only worried about her safety. _Oh_ , by all Felina's fingers, it was stupid! He was furious at the thought about it. He sighed heavily as he remembered his sharp exchange with his friend earlier…

_She was so excited when she and Guy walked into the canteen. The smile did not leave her face, and Puss knew then that she would say something he would not like very much._

“ _I have some news everyone! Guy here asked me to join him on his next adventure!”_

_Puss felt as if she had punched him in the face._

_For a good minute he couldn't find the words and just watched señora Zapata, Pajuna and the rest of the townspeople rejoice and cheer._

“ _And you said yes, of course?” he heard someone ask, and even if he didn't register exactly who, he was almost hundred percent sure that it was Zapata who did it, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye with that sneering smirk._

“ _Well, yes! After all, who could pass up a once-in-a-lifetime adventure with yours truly?” she giggled._

_A damned giggle._

_He grabbed her hands and they started talking and smiling broadly, and they started planning something out loud, and everyone was looking at them like they were something adorable, and it seemed like only Puss could see that something was wrong with this situation!_

“ _Woah! Woah! Wait a second! Wait! Hey!” he began, raising his hands to eye level, ignoring the meaningful looks of Pajuna, Duchess, or Zapata. Dulcinea looked his way, and Puss felt his knees shake under her gaze. But he immediately shook his head, taking on seriousness._

“ _Dulcinea, may I talk to you for a moment?” he cast a short look over to Guy. “Alone?” he added._

_She opened her mouth, but said nothing._

_Puss nervously shifted his weight from one leg to the other, noticing a horrible and awkward silence in the inn, and he felt the heavy, scolding stares of the three women behind him._

_Well, at least he knew now how the mice he chased sometimes felt._

“ _I don’t think I...” she said suddenly and stepped back from him, taking Guy’s arm._

_His damned arm._

“ _If you want to tell me something, you may as well do it now, yes?”_

_He closed his eyes in irritation, as he took a calming breath through his nose. His stomach was turning over and his paws started to sweat. For a second he analyzed all his life choices he had made so far and wondered how and why was he standing in this canteen now, in awkward silence, with the eyes of each inhabitant focused on him._

_He sighed, straightening up proudly and crossing his arms over his chest, wanting to look a little taller than he really was. He lifted his chin slightly so that he could look at her gently from above._

“ _Alright, if that is what you want.” he breathed again, nervously sweeping his tail behind him, and finally spewed out what had been on his lips since they had both entered the inn. “You can not just go out into the unknown with someone you know for only a few hours.”_

_He heard surprised sighs all around him, and he was sure the Duchess had just run a hand across her face behind him, but he ignored it. It was too late to back out._

_Dulcinea frowned and shook her head, looking confused if not offended._

“ _I’m sorry, Puss, but I don't remember asking your permission.”_

_Puss raised his eyebrows in surprise and almost hissed at Zapata’s quiet "Ha!"._

“ _Dulcinea, this is not about permission.” he said, placing his hands on his hips. “I promised to protect San Lorenzo, and that means you too, and some expedition to unknown land with an almost complete stranger is dangerous. You simply can not do something so unreasonable.”_

“ _Señor Puss, I can assure you, that-” Guy suddenly cut in, which actually only made matters worse._

“ _Be quiet, will you? I am not talking to you.” Puss snapped at him, already losing his patience._

“ _Puss!” Dulcinea gasped outraged, drawing his attention back to her._

“ _Dulcinea!” he mimicked her expression._

_The atmosphere in the inn was so dense that it could be cut with a knife. Everyone watched the argument with bated breath, and only Artephius and Eames ate popcorn._

“ _I just don’t believe you!” no one had seen Dulcinea so furious in a long time. She clenched her fists and stamped her heel, tears of anger visible in her eyes. “Why won't you so stubbornly let me be happy with someone I have chosen?”_

_Puss almost snorted at the words, smiling incredulously._

“ _What? So now you are going to tell me that you love him?” he asked mockingly, but the answer that came was absolutely not expected._

“ _So what if I do? I can’t expect you to understand that.” she scoffed. “You could never love anoyne, could you?”_

_The sentence was like a shot to the heart._

_He stared at her, as furious as ever, gasping from screams and swallowing hard. And his attitude has changed. His tense arms dropped and he was no longer able to hold on to that cold, indifferent expression. She looked away from him._

_He looked around, and everyone in the inn, even Zapata, had the same look on their faces. Shock and disbelief._

_He ran his tongue over his teeth and sneered, nodding his head._

“ _Yeah...” he said quietly, looking down._

_He looked up at her and Dulcinea looked at him too. Was it possible to smile so sadly?_

“ _I could not.” he finished, and passed her by, on the way to the door bumping Guy with his shoulder._

He could argue. He could stand there and shout, and fight, and curse, and play the hero-

But for what? He would gain nothing, and if he did, he would only harm Dulcinea more. And he had done enough already, making her lovely eyes tear. The tears he will never forget. And even if he had wanted to, señora Zapata, or the Duchess _or_ Pajuna would never let him do that. Because he would stay with them in town, where they could torment him for the rest of his life, and do his duty as defender of San Lorenzo. Dulcinea, on the other hand... Nothing kept her there. She never promised to stay there.

She never promised to stay with _him_.

“ _You know what they say, laddie. If you love her, give her freedom. And if she loves you, she will come back to you.”_

“ _I do_ _not_ _know if you are aware, but you just said that no one ever loved me.”_

Patrolling the city was not the most exciting thing to do, especially if no thief was around to rob the treasurehouse. How much Puss hoped that sooner or later someone would show up. He didn't need anything more at that moment than fighting. He felt an incredible need to release all the anger that was bubbling up in his stomach, and he could not continue to smash barrels with an axe (the mayor still ran away every time he saw him).

On that day, however, the entire universe colluded to make his life difficult.

He passed the orphanage. Warm light streamed through the slightly ajar door of the inn on the other side of the square. Unable to contain his innate curiosity, he glanced in, and his blood almost began to boil in his veins. This... _This_... That _pseudo-hero_ sat in _his_ place, and as if that were not enough, he was _holding_ Dulcinea's _hand_.

He turned his head abruptly, moving forward confidently. His previous anger was gone, replaced by something else. Something sad that squeezed his heart like an iron glove and made breathing difficult.

How _stupid_ he was, thinking that...

Silly.

Foolish.

 _Stupid_.

Something prevented him from sinking into his own suffering. It was a soft sob that he heard from the orphans' garden.

His defender instinct immediately told him to give up everything he struggled with and rush to help someone who obviously needed it more than he did.

Casting one last glance behind him, he strode to the direction from which the crying was coming. And he found its source.

"Vina?" he asked in surprise, and the girl looked up at him with her teary eyes, quickly wiping her cheeks.

Without hesitating a moment, he approached her, looking for wounds, as he thought that physical pain was the reason for her crying. But after examining her for a moment with his eyes, he thought, that she looked okay. Not different from any other time when he saw her.

"Oh!" she sighed in surprise, looking away. "Hi Puss… Did you know that I'm just sitting here and..." she broke off in a trembling voice.

He looked at her with pity. Suddenly he saw something she clenched her hand on, something she tried to hide from his eyes.

A red rose.

He sighed.

Without saying a word, he walked over to her. She stared at him in surprise, but Puss did nothing but sat down beside her and looked up at the big silver moon, its silhouette reflected in his eyes.

He turned his face towards her and smiled sadly. She started crying again.

He extended his arm to her and let her rest her forehead against his shoulder.

He stroked her dark hair, but said nothing. Sometimes any reassurances that _everything would be fine_ were simply unnecessary.

Puss had no idea what Vina really saw in Toby. Perhaps it was just a child's crush, or maybe something more. In any case, the piglet was clearly infatuated with Cleevil, that was more than certain. Puss disliked seeing the people he cared about in tears, but there was nothing he could do to change someone's feelings. _Ha!_ He couldn't even control his own, let alone someone else's.

So they were both sitting there, away from their laughing friends. Two broken hearts that couldn't help their fate.

"Puss..." Vina began, sniffing, resting her wet cheek on his shoulder. "How..." she hiccupped. "How do you feel when you see Dulcinea and Guy Fox together?"

He opened his mouth to answer, but no words left his lips. He smirked and looked at the moon once more. He stroked her hand that was resting on his arm, feeling her salty tears fall on his fur again.

“ _I want to go somewhere and scream as loud as I can, until I tear my throat bloody. I want to pull my heart out and yell at it, throw it, burn it and be heartless. Because when I was, nothing could hurt me.”_

"This is how I feel." he whispered with a sad smile, resting his temple on her head. "I feel like this."


End file.
